cars of the
rock it showed; deep it went, and wound deeper at his nearing. He entered
the gape over boulders, and a way still there was wide before him; he
took nine paces with gloom confronting, a tenth--aslant came a dazzling
gleam of white. Amazed he faced to it, held stone-still an instant, sped
on and out; he stood in full sunlight, and winked bewildered at the
incredible open of fair sands before him.

The wonder dawned into comprehension. Though far eyes were deluded by a
perfect semblance of solidity, the half of the Isle was hollow as a
shell. Over against him rose the remaining moiety; high walls of rock
swept round on either side, hindered from complete enclosure by the cleft
of his entrance. He turned and looked back through the gorge, and again
over the sunlit open; it was hard to believe he was out of dreamland, so
Eden-bright and perfect was this contrast to the grand sombre chasm he
had left. White and smooth, the sands extended up to the base of the dark
rocks. There rich drapery of weed indicated the tide-mark; strips of
captured water gleamed; great boulders lay strewn; coves and alcoves
deeply indented the lines of the enclosing walls. To the boy's eyes it
looked the fairest spot of earth the sea could ever find to visit. Its
aspect of lovely austere virginity, candid, serene, strictly girt,
touched very finely on the fibres of sense and soul.

He stepped out on firm blanch sand ribbed slightly by the reluctant ebb.
Trails of exquisite weed, with their perfect display of every slender
line and leaf betokened a gracious and gentle outgoing of the sea. In
creamy pink, ivory, citron, and ranges of tender colour that evade the
fact of a name, these delicate cullings lay strewn, and fragile shells of
manifold beauty and design. There, among weed and shell, he spied a
branch of coral, and habit and calling drew him to it instantly. He had
never fetched up its like, for the colour was rare, and for its thickness
and quality he wondered. Suddenly the coral drops from his hand; he
utters an inarticulate cry and stands amazed. His eye has fallen on a
mark in the sand; it is of a human footstep.

Blank disappointment at this sign of forestalling struck him first, but
startled wonder followed hard, and took due prominence as he looked
around on his solitude encompassed by steep black heights, and heard the
muffled thunder outside that would not be shut off by them. He stooped to
examine the naked footprint, an